


It's Time For Miracles (Phan)

by thegirlwholikestowrite



Category: Phandom, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 378, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Brain Cancer, Brain tumor, Cancer, Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Death, Children's Hospital, Coma, Doctors, Existentialism, French Characters, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Grief/Mourning, Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Homelessness, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internal Conflict, Leukemia, London Royal Hospital, M/M, Major Illness, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Death, Nightmares, Nurses, One Night Stands, Original Character Death(s), POV Original Character, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Phan - Freeform, Phanfiction, Phil Sleeps On The Couch, References to Illness, SO MUCH SADNESS, Sad, Sadness, Self-Esteem Issues, Sickness, Some Humor, Talk about death, Terminal Illnesses, The Royal London Hospital, Tragedy, dying, hospital room
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:29:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4225377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwholikestowrite/pseuds/thegirlwholikestowrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hospitals seem peaceful to people, miraculous even. To me it's my own personal hell. The way too familiar scent of the cheap disinfectant, the constant rumbling of the machines, the never ending rush, the never stopping death.  None of it was miraculous to me. Friendly nurses dressed in white head to toe, bringing my medicine along with lame jokes, doctors pretending not to notice my red lined arms everyone pretending everything is going to be alright. None of it helps my pain. None of it stops me from knowing I am bound tot die before I am 18. None of it stops this tumor growing inside of me and  none of it stops me from hearing stiffled sobs echoing through he hallway. None of it ends our pain. What soothes this painful understanding of death is the smile that spreads over Lucy's face when Audre braids her hair in two long strands of blond starlight, the giggle that Winnie lets out when I let him touch my electric blue hair. We lose sight of our ending just for a little while and get wrapped in the simple sense of making each other happy. So if you are looking for a miracle, don't look for it in the fake smiles or medicine. Where you need to look is floor 6, door 378, our very own miracle in PCCU, Dan Howell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What I Believe In

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Guys!  
> It's been a very long time since my last fic but this took a very long time. Research and writing and the planning for it took more time than I originally planned. I hope you guys like this. Kudos/comments would be amazing because this story has a cause that I am still planning for and feedback would help me a lot to estimate participation.  
> So there is a soundtrack to go with this and I will put the link for every chapter.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXmNfqIR4z0  
> Lots of love <3

Phil had been jumpy lately, the a little too fast closing of the heavy doors was enough to make him flinch, the quiet sounds of footsteps echoing down the hall was enough to wake him up from his nightmares. Everything was so sudden, so not the way they planned things. Waiting for MRI screening results had been as normal as setting up lighting for their new video. The awful hospital smell had became as familiar as the coffee Dan made for him some mornings. His tired and patient smile had replaced the one he had gotten used to for the past seven years. They both had to grow into this terrible routine of expecting good things from life and receiving bad hospital food and an ugly uncomfortable purple couches to sleep on. Phil was okay as long as the young boy's faded smile didn't shadow the sparkle in his eyes. He was fine as long as they didn't stay in the Royal London Hospital for the rest of Dan's life.  
He unlocked the bathroom door with practiced ease and walked over the sink, stained with god knows what. He ran cold water over his hands and splashed his face. Hesitantly looking up to his reflection, he was taken aback by the horrid image he had seen. What he was seeing wasn't himself. Sunken eyes and deepening circles around them made him look dead, like anything in this hospital looked. He swallowed, guilt taking over his other emotions; fear, sadness, loss. He was guilty that he made Dan deal with himself like Dan's own troubles weren't enough. He feared that nothing would be the same again and he would have to live with himself like this for the rest of his life. He was sad. Anyone would be. He had lost his home, hadn't slept in his own bed for almost two months. He hadn't felt the feeling of being home with Dan in ages.  
He hated mirrors.  
He forced a smile and walked back to Dan's room ,exchanging genuine smiles with Nurse Claire. She had been nothing but nice for the whole time they had been there. She didn't have to share Phil's pain.  
He knocked on Dan's door, one hand buried deep in his pocket. After a couple seconds of silence and the shuffling of the bed sheets, Dan opened the door with a smile on his face.  
"Hi!"  
"Hi Dan, how are you doing?"  
"Good, they had waffles for breakfast, you missed out. What did you get from the house?"  
"Some clothes for you, some games, not a lot. I left them at the front desk, didn't feel like carrying them."  
Dan made his way back to his bed and sat, looking at Phil. He was looking a little better than he did yesterday. He had bothered to straighten his hair in quite a while and his smile looked sincere. He hadn't realized he had been staring at the crabs imprinted on Dan's pajamas for a little too long, Dan raised his eyebrows and reached for his bottle of water, turning his attention to the TV unquestioningly.  
His cancer had taken a lot from him. He had faded like an old book, the yellow pages torn at the sides. He tried to look okay, for Phil, for his family. But for the last three months he had been everything other than okay. It was still painful to remember the first month he was hospitalized, with a broken rib and fractured skull when he lost his balance and fell. It still made Phil want to lock himself in a room and cry until his lungs gave out to think about the times where they waited for the results, using anything for distraction but failing every time.  
Dan was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia two and a half months after the incident. He didn't want to talk about any of those things. He acted like it never happened. Like he didn't black out running down the stairs to the tube station, like he didn't end up in the hospital, like he didn't stay in a coma for a week and Phil didn't hold back tears for Dan's mother, like he didn't go home to look at Dan's things, like Phil didn't cry to the thought of him dying.  
The doctors called it a miracle that he woke up. It took them a month to realize there was nothing miraculous about Dan's health. Dan ignored everything, smiled at the nurses drawing his blood, joked with the doctors checking up on him, he had became the mascot of the Critical Adult Unit, being the youngest and the funniest, and well, famous. He laughed and took billions of selfies with the nurses, if you looked at him in the morning, he was no different than what he was before.  
But it was Phil who heard him sob into his pillow at night. He would curl up in a ball and push his knees up to his chin and cry. He was afraid, you could hear it in his broken sobs and you could see it in his eyes when he let his guard down.  
Dan Howell was transferred to the Paediatric Critical Care Unit, 378 a week ago, the hospital was full of sick adults and there wasn't a room left for Dan after he was diagnosed. He didn't mind being around children, but he hardly saw them. An occasional wave to the blond girl with two long braids and seeing a tiny 5 year old with curly hair run around the hallway, that was all human interaction he had.  
His room was as depressing as the hospital itself. A small closet was enough for his and Phil's clothes and an ugly desk sat across his bed, a small TV over it to seek distraction when everything became too dull and gloomy. The couch Phil used as his bed was right next to the hospital bed, covered in white sheets that sometimes scared him. Everything in hospital TV shows were real, just uglier in real life.  
Just like everything.  
Dan didn't know how painful dying was until he was the sick one. The extra romanticized cancer books never showed how it truly felt to be this ill, to have to go through medication, radiation every goddamn day and still not be able to function like a normal person. He was a faulty human being, an error in his DNA, a mutation. He carried a time bomb inside him and it reminded him how he constantly let people down and he would be doing it again when he died.  
He didn't bother with "if's", it was when he died, it was inevitable. Painful but equally inevitable.  
He barely went outside now. He didn't see any reason too. His friends were visiting him almost every week and he didn't need to go outside and see normal people living their normal lives and have a constant reminder about how he would never be normal again.  
He missed the smell of the rain.  
He missed the smell of fresh brewed coffee, mostly from Phil.  
He missed being home.  
Nightmares haunted his sleep every night, sometimes he would see himself die a painful death, sometimes he would see his mother crying at his funeral, sometimes he just saw himself running away from the darkness. Waking up from them was the worst part. Waking up and realizing reality wasn't any different than his awful dreams made him want to go to sleep and never wake up again.  
There was nothing poetic about cancer, or having cancer, or dying from cancer. Cancer did more than just taking away your physical abilities. It confined you, stripped you of everything you cared about. It was a simple dislocation of a single gene sometimes, that caused the forever pain of seeing your own mother hold back tears through a smile. It was seeing your best friend sit on an uncomfortable waiting chair while you had to lie still in a tube that ironically resembled a coffin.  
Everyone talked about fighting, talked about the fact you couldn't give up on living. But nobody ever looked into the fact people didn't ever give up on living. Their bodies gave up on them. And as much as they talked about fighting, they talked about believing in something in the face of the sudden catastrophe. Like believing in themselves or the doctors or the treatment or some chemical made them a hero, a survivor. Like being stubborn against death was bravery rather than simply not wanting to die.  
Cancer didn't care for age. The 5 year old boy next room suffered as much as the blue haired 15 year old did. The blonde girl with the braids feared death as much as Dan did. Cancer didn't care if you had so much love for living in you, it didn't matter that people loved you and needed you alive. People don't fear cancer because it some sudden illness and a cataclysmic disease that eventually kills you, people fear it because it is a slow and inevitable death, losing hope in physical form.  
Cancer was greedy. It didn't settle with just slowly killing a human, it figuratively sucked the life out of whomever it was killing.  
Dan was very well aware of the fact that having cancer didn't mean he was going to die, but cancer was entitled to kill whomever it desired and Dan was also very well aware that he was going to fade away and not even leave something behind. He felt it to his bones.  
As much as the thought of dying scared him, he knew there was no remedy to the briefness of his life, or a cure for his mortality. What scared him more was that no one would remember him in a couple of centuries. In a matter of years, it would be as if he never existed. And the pain of not being remembered despite all this suffering would beat any other kind of pain if it was a contest.  
He wasn't anyone's hero. He hadn't saved any lives or inspired anyone. He hadn't gone to the Mars and he hadn't left footsteps on the moon, he hadn't fallen in love or made anyone proud. He wasn't number one in anything. And life didn't treat second places nicely. Life didn't exactly treat cancer patients nicely.  
He longed to do something with his existence. Dying in a cold and dark hospital room, disappearing in this grey building, watching crappy soap operas, wasting time locked in this room and counting the rain drops that fell on the window sill didn't give him any opportunities to do that.  
Until it did.  
It was a cold November morning, and Phil had convinced him to at least walk around the hospital, maybe even go the Happy Room. It was full of toys and crayons and Dan considered it childish. But seeing the smile on Phil's face when he agreed to it, he didn't mind.  
The hallways were as awful as the rest of the things, for the children's floor they had changed he old grey to a bright blue. It was ironically funny. It was as if life saying "Wow you are dying and probably not seeing the sky enough, here you go, to remind you of the fact you won't see it again when you die."  
They were in a long and deep conversation about some video game when Dan heard a quiet giggle, followed by a small boy with curly hair and dimples as deep as Dan's, he stopped when he saw the two of them. A shy smile spread over his lips as he blurted out an awkward "hi." Dan couldn't help but smile back, with his Winnie The Pooh pajamas and bare feet, he was the most adorable human he had ever seen.  
"Hi!"  
"What's your name?" His words mixed together in such a way Dan had the strongest urge to hug the boy for hours and never let him go.  
"I am Dan. What's yours?"  
Surprised by Dan's friendliness, he giggled.  
"I'm Winnie. Winston."  
"Nice to meet you Winston. Do you want to go to the Happy Room and play some games, maybe?"  
It seemed impossible how believing in something could help in any way. But that moment when the kid's eyes glistened with hope and joy and he raised his hand to hold Dan's, Dan believed. He didn't know what he believed in just then but he believed in something. And that something was all he had at that moment.


	2. Autumn In Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Phil take a walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sleeping At Last- Mars

It was a rare sunny London morning and Dan had woken up with a smile on his face. That was new. And contagious. Phil couldn't keep his smile to himself as he ate his breakfast quietly on the couch, barely focusing on the show they were watching. He giggled softly into his hand as Winnie ran in their room, his tight curls dancing around as he hugged Dan tightly. It had been almost a week since they made friends with the tiny boy, and it was impossible to not smile every thirty seconds when he was around.  
"Dan, Phil, guess what?" he asked with pure excitement glistening in his bright green eyes.  
"What?" they answered in unison. Dan pulled him to his lap and started playing with his curls.  
"The doctors came to my room yesterday, to talk to mommy. And they gave me lollipops. He told me I was the bravest boy he had ever seen and he gave me a really big hug. He told my mom about the chemo and told her how smart I had been. You know, I didn't even cry when they took some blood from me. Do you think I am really brave?"  
Dan smiled, pulling Winston in a hug.  
"You are most definitely the bravest boy I know." He paused to face him. "You know who's not brave at all?"  
"Who?"  
"Phillip Michael Lester. He is scared of darkness, spiders and vampires. He can't turn off his lights because he is scared the vampires will come for him."  
He held back his laughter to put his cereal down.   
"Daniel Howell, I am not scared of darkness. Or spiders. Or vampires."  
They all laughed. Dan laughed at the cute giggle Winnie let out. Phil laughed at how happy Dan was.  
After Winston's mom came in to room to take him back, Dan sat back on his bed and sighed happily. He turned to Phil.  
"I am really in the mood for some socializing, wanna go outside? Take a walk or something?"  
Phil nodded. It would be good for them. To forget about things for a while and ignore everything bad about their lives. It would be good for Dan mostly. To get away from this place that constantly reminded him about death.   
They got dressed and headed out, waving at nurses that rushed around.   
The weather was as good as it could be for London. The wind rustled the leaves and they pulled their coats closer, it was colder than it was supposed to be when the sun was out. They walked around for a while in silence. It wasn't the kind of silence that laid on your skin like poison, it was the kind when everyone was comforted by the spoken nothingness.   
They found a bench at a park and sat, Dan's hands in his pockets. His eyes wandered around the park like a lost boy at a supermarket. He hadn't been to a park in a long while, he was taking it all in. People walking their dogs, playing with their kids, the occasional quiet laughter. The air was warm, beams of sunlight glowed on their skin, they quietly watched the graceful dance of the yellowed leaves falling on the gravel littered pavement, sometimes on the rusting metal benches. It was peaceful.   
For the first time in three months, they experienced life in full color. The red of Phil's jacket, the blue of the sky, thousand shades of the falling leaves, autumn in bloom. They admired what they had. It was a matter that held no true form; solace. Their black and white world stripped of color had changed.  
Dan picked his eyes up the gravel to face Phil.  
"It's so... unbelievable."  
"What?"  
"How fast things are happening. How weak we are against everything and how much power we don't hold to change them."  
He looked away.  
"It's happening too quickly Phil, and I can't stop it. Four months ago, I had no worries other than you not closing the cupboard doors and now... they are telling that there will be no more traveling other countries, no more birthdays with you, they are telling me my life from here on is between four walls and pain medication and therapy and doctors until I die. They are telling me I am dying Phil. And... I don't want to. I don't want to die before falling in love, growing old, getting married, having my own life. I don't want to die in a grey hospital room. I want to die alive."  
Phil had no words of comfort for Dan. Dan looked down, blinking away his tears.  
"You aren't going to die. Not soon anyways. You will grow old and annoy me until you are like, eighty or something." He smiled, he wanted to believe what he was saying as much as Dan did.   
Dan snorted lightly.  
"I am going to keep annoying you even after I die. I will haunt your ass. Hide your medicine and take your wheelchair or something."   
They both laughed.   
Dan's laugh faded slowly in a matter of seconds, the smile still lingered on his face.   
"Do you really mean it Phil?"  
"What?"  
"That there is a chance I can make it alive out of there and... continue to live my life like this had been a nightmare, a war I had won."  
"Dan, you are one of the strongest person I know. Things you have done, things you have accomplished. You aren't afraid to live, you can. One day we can exit through those hospital doors without you having to go back."  
Dan smiled at Phil.   
They both didn't know how much the other believed in what he just said but for the moment they both found comfort in each other's smiles, like they always did. Maybe not everything had changed.  
Phil was smiling.  
Perhaps "smile" wasn't the best word for it, he was smiling a little. His lips slightly curved to the side. But his smile didn't reach his eyes that were lit with sadness. For a few moments Dan stared at him, almost sure that his expression mirrored his. It broke his heart. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to turn into a random image, a faint outline of a memory that floated in the pool of his memory. He didn't want to be the one where Phil smiled exactly like this when remembering. He didn't want to leave. He wanted their smiles to stay.  
They stayed silent. This silence wasn't filled with mechanic beeping of hospital machines, the quiet sobs, the footsteps of the rushing nurses, mind-numbing sound of suffering. This silence was filled with the songs of the birds and the slight cracks of the branches.   
There was a war inside of Dan. A part of him wanted to fight as much as he could and make it out alive. A part of him didn't see a meaning to it; if it was bound to happen it would. And if he lost the fight, it would have been for nothing. His mom and Phil would watch him die and they would see him get weaker and weaker until he no longer could walk without help. They would watch him die the worst way possible. His pain would reflect on everyone he cared about, everyone he loved. Phil would go back to their apartment and throw everything of Dan's out, so that he wouldn't be reminded of the sad memory called Dan.  
He turned to Phil, asking him if he wanted to go back without words.   
Phil nodded.  
Reading each other's thoughts was as easy for them as reading a text message was. Seven years of being each other's best friend, everything had become so casual. Phil could see the sadness in the warm smile on Dan's face. Like he saw every little thing, he saw how petrified Dan was. He saw the doubt, he saw the despair, he saw the misery.   
He felt all of them himself.  
They walked side by side, the wind had slowed. It lingered in the air like a dark cloud, always ready to choke to life out of him. Wherever Phil moved, silence seemed to follow. It was his very own personal shadow. It was unnatural, void, and it refused to fill the emptiness that fell in between them.   
They made it to the hospital before lunch time. Dan changed into his pajamas and Phil grabbed a book from the shelf, not even bothering with reading the title. The thoughts in his head were longing to be silenced and numbing his mind with any words would be enough.   
Dan fell asleep not long after Phil finished the first chapter.  
Phil slowly closed the book and put it back to where it belonged, ignoring the line of dust. Making sure Dan was asleep, he perched himself up on the window sill. He quietly watched Dan sleep, his chest barely moving, his breaths audible, the sad lines around his eyes gone.   
Phil thought it was raining. But they were inside. And the sky was clear.  
Phil was crying.  
He didn't have the courage to live without Dan. He didn't have the courage to watch him fight this then lose. He simply didn't have the courage to watch Dan die.   
The world around him became a blur of color and weight in his chest held him down. The pain in the back of his mind all tumbled out in the form of small crystal beads, small tokens of sorrow and misery. He cried for a while, sniffling into his shirt. Then he fell asleep with tears still wet in his eyes.  
When he woke up Dan wasn't in his bed. He heard the shower run and he sleepily rubbed at his eyes. He cautiously lowered himself and sat on the couch, pulling out his phone to distract himself. He busied himself with random games and fan mail.   
He looked up when Dan walked in the room with a towel wrapped around him, water dripping on the floor.   
"Hi!"  
"Hi, was the windowsill comfortable?"  
Phil laughed nervously, hoping Dan hadn't seen him cry. He rubbed his arm and groaned.  
"Remind me to not do that ever again. I feel like I got ran over by a truck."  
Dan laughed and made his way to the closet to pick another pair of pajamas. He didn't wear anything else since he had been hospitalized and seeing him wear clothes other than black still felt weird even after three months.   
"What do you want to do? I don't want to just sit around today."  
Phil wasn't surprised. The hospital room was suffocating, anyone would want to get out.   
"We can go to the Happy Room, play with Winnie. I don't know, this hospital is boring."  
"Every hospital is boring Phil. But yeah, we can go find Winnie."   
After Dan got dressed they walked to the Happy Room. Winnie was the only one there. A bright smile spread over his face when he saw the two of them come in. He jumped on his bean bag and ran to Dan, his short chubby arms circling his legs.   
Dan picked him up effortlessly and turned him around. His laughter echoed in the empty room. Dan put him down and held his hand. Winnie looked up at Phil's bright blue eyes, searching for permission. He hesitantly brought his hand up to Phil's, and Phil found himself liking the strangely comforting feeling that Winnie's fingers wrapped around his brought.  
Trust. It was trust.  
Looking at the two of them watch Winnie The Pooh with occasional giggles, he felt home for the first time in three months. Without Dan yelling at a video game or talking to a camera, or walking around with a bowl of cereal in his hands, or leaving unnecessary clothing around, their apartment wasn't close to being called home.  
It used to be.   
But for now, the Happy Room in Royal London Hospital, walls lined with strangely drawn cartoons and crayon drawings up on them, this place was their home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a new chapter until I get my inspiration back. Had been busy lately, I will try to post a couple more chapters this week. There is a lot of things happening in my life and it's kind of exciting. ^_^


	3. The Sun Will Rise And We Will Try Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan has a nightmare. He also wakes up to one.  
> Phil cries.  
> I cry.  
> Everyone cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Antlers- Bear
> 
> Yoooo!  
> I promised a couple chapters before I left for Turkey so here you go. If you wanna know when I will update you can check out my Twitter or Tumblr.
> 
> iwillgodownwiththewaywardship.tumblr.com  
> @IpekTheHunter cause I am a nerd

_It's here for you._

_It's here to take you. Don't let it take you._

_You have to run and hide. You can't let it catch you. It will catch you and take you away._

_You have to run. He can't find you. He shouldn't find you. You have to run. You have to get away. You have to run as fast as you can. You have to run as fast as your legs will allow you to. You have to run and never let it get to you._

_It's here for you. It's coming here to take you._

_You have to run away. Run, run, you have to run, you have to get away, run. Run as far from here as you can. You have to get away. You can't let it get to you. Run. Run away.._

It was dark, his footsteps echoed from the walls surrounding him, water pooled around his ankles and he desperately looked for a source of light. God, it was so dark. He felt the walls around him, they got closer, closing in on him. He ran. Everything was etched in charcoal. He forced himself to breathe. His lungs burned.

_Don't look back, just please get away. It's coming, it's getting closer. It's coming to get you. Run away. Don't let it get to you. You have to run and get away. It's close. You have to run away._

_Run, you have to run. Run and hide. Stay away from it. Don't let it catch you. Run as fast as you can. Run. You have to run. You have to save yourself. No one can save you but yourself._

_Run, run away._

He could feel his heart throbbing inside his chest, beads of sweat lingered on his forehead. He forced another breath. His feet pounded the wet concrete as he tried to get away from what lurked beyond the range of his vision. It was getting closer every second and Dan didn't have the energy to run anymore. Everything blurred.

_Run, you have to go You have to get away from here It's getting closer..._

The blackness took over his vision and he heard footsteps behind him coming closer, the outline of a shadow or maybe a silhouette his mind created barely visible. He remained silent, hoping to be unseen. The voice came closer. With each breath he struggled not to suffocate.

_Run... Run away...Save yourself, run from this..It can't get to you. Don't let it get to you. You have to run from this._

Beads of sweat rolled down his cheek, his breath caught in his throat and his legs abruptly stopped. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust the darkness to make out a faint figure laying in front of him. Lifeless.

He screamed for help.

_It's not real, Dan. You just have to open your eyes and it will all be gone._

Leaning in closer, he saw that the body belonged to a young man, around his twenties. Dan put his hands to the man's neck, looking for a sign of life. The man wasn't breathing. He  searched for a source of light, once again blinded by the complete nothingness. As he looked down, a pained moan escaped the pale lips of the body.

_Open your eyes. It's not real. Wake up. Open your eyes. Please wake up it's not real._

His eyes opened in a flash and his arm grabbed Dan. When the panic subsided he realized the man looked oddly familiar.

_Wake up, you have to wake up. It's not real, wake up. It's okay now you just need to wake up. You just need to wake up._

_Wake up._

_Don't let it get to you._

It was Dan.

He opened his eyes. It was dark in the hospital room but he could make out his surroundings. Phil and a nurse he hadn't seen before stood over his bed, a frightened look on their faces. It was cold in the room, he shivered.

"You okay?"

_It's okay now. You are safe. It can't get to you now._

He couldn't get his lips to move so he clenched his teeth and nodded for an answer. Phil didn't seem to believe Dan. The fear in his eyes gave it all away. The nurse checked his pulse and shook her head.

"Do you need some painkillers? I could get you some."

Dan shook his head. He had enough of not being in control, he didn't want to be drugged. He sighed and laid on his back. The clock on his bedside clock read 3:42. It explained the rare silence that loomed around the hospital.

He silently watched as the nurse informed Phil about medical procedures and tests that were needed. He had read it all before. Booklets were given to Dan, informing him about his diagnosis. He had read them like a criminal accepting his death sentence. Low blood pressure and night sweats, psychological issues, they all were a side effect of this.

He wanted to go back to sleep and ignore Phil's wariness on him but it felt impossible under his securing gaze. He pulled a chair and sat next to his bed, looking up at him with expectant eyes. Dan raised his eyebrows, not sure what Phil was expecting.

"Do you... want to talk about what happened?"

"It was just a nightmare Phil, it happens to all normal people. I am okay. I don't have issues."

"I never said you did Dan."

It was frustrating how he managed to stay calm and keep things together at times like this. The tone of his voice always soothed Dan, left no traces of worry, fear. But sometimes even that wasn't enough.

"Don't make me go through any more tests please. I just can't bear any more of... the look everyone gives me like they are feeling sorry for me and they treat me like I am a piece of glass always ready to shatter and they... I don't want to just sit there and wait while they put all my life into a sheet of paper in the form of random statistics. I don't want to see myself on a chart."

"Dan...-"

"Don't "Dan" me, I am not 18 anymore Phil. I understand things. I am very well aware of the fact that my body isn't accepting of me anymore and my cancer is affecting my brain but it won't affect my sanity. I am not crazy. I don't need a shrink. It's just a nightmare."

Phil paused to think about what Dan had just said, things he was afraid to say before. He nodded.

"Okay, whatever you say. I believe you."

After a couple uncomfortable moments of silence later Phil spoke up.

"What was it?"

"What?"

"The nightmare... what was it?"

Dan looked down at his hands, not knowing what to do with them. Phil knew everything about him, and he was the one that stayed awake for hours just to make sure he was okay. Hiding things from him wouldn't declare him less insane.

"I... I was running and it was dark and I could feel the pain all over my body and I couldn't run, then I stumbled on... on a dead body. I was trying to help and I called out but... then he opened his eyes and grabbed me and I tried to get away but he looked so familiar I couldn't... I couldn't help but look and... it was me. I was the dead body."

"Oh." Phil looked horrified and he didn't bother with hiding his surprise. "I am sorry. But, you know it's just a dream right? It doesn't mean anything."

"Yeah. It's nothing. Uh... we should probably go to sleep. You are doing a lot for me already, I shouldn't..."

Phil reached for Dan's arm.

"We have been here for each other for over seven years. And I am fine with staying with you for the rest of my life. I didn't leave you before and I won't leave you now. We are friends, Dan."

"Well, I didn't have cancer before. Now I do. I used to be a not pathetic loser that needed to be hospitalized."

"Your cancer has nothing to do with my intentions of being here for you. I was here before and I will be here again."

"There won't be an again! I will die and you won't have a friend to be there for. I am dying and I am tired of you ignoring the fact that I am dying. I am trying to get used to it and you should too. I am tired of playing this game and pretending I am okay. This is real life and in real life I am dying. Grow up!"

With that he was gone. He left the room in a rush and left the white sheets on the floor, the door ajar and Phil with tears in his eyes. He ran. He didn't know where he was going but he longed for a place where he could be alone with his suffering.

He was tired of being treated like a breakable object.

He wasn't.

He was breakable but he just wasn't.

He wasn't fragile.

He missed home. He missed the simple comfort it gave him when he was sitting on the couch with Phil next to him, sharing a bowl of popcorn. He missed his bed, he missed the quiet nights when it was only Phil and him, talking about things that didn't matter. He missed the simplicity of everything. He missed the nights without nightmares. He missed the way he felt when everything was a simple routine and nothing was out of ordinary.

Now nothing felt right.

He didn't want to fight this.

If fighting meant surviving for months along with pressure and pain and losing it all with a simple thing like a heart dysfunction, if fighting meant taking everything out on Phil and crying himself to sleep every night and if fighting meant that he would die every day just so he wouldn't die once, he didn't want to fight.

If fighting implied hiding in janitor's closets as tears washed the stains of hidden shadows, if it implied being this weak but still pretending to be okay, he preferred giving up, giving into his own mutation.

He dragged himself back to the hospital room. Phil was asleep, or he pretended to be. He found himself sitting on the window sill. It was the perfect spot to break down and it made sense that you would cry looking out to the window and seeing the lives of strangers perfect without you. He sat there and cried for hours, his shoulders shaking.

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and brought his knees up to his chin. He shivered through his living nightmare, checking up on Phil from time to time. He was terrified, but as he saw the sun go up in the sky once again, he found a strange amount of courage inside himself. It hadn't been there before.

If the sun could leave the sky every night and come back every morning with another start, so could he. If the sun could leave everyone in the darkness for a while and then come back to light their worlds up with new hopes then so could he. If the sun could do all of this and then so could he.

He had reasons to fight. He had his family. He had Phil. He had Phil that gave him everything he had in this life and he had Phil who was there for his every laugh and every sob. He had Winnie next room waiting to tell him about the new story he made up. He had Winnie next room that looked forward seeing Dan after his chemotherapy.

People needed him to live so he was going to.

There was no need to be selfishly poetic and giving up without a fight.

Brendon Urie had taught him otherwise.

He smiled and went to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to whoever got my title reference Love you all <3
> 
> Also sorry for the This Is Gospel reference I couldn't help myslef.  
> Anyways.  
> Bye.


End file.
